The present invention relates in general to telephony conferencing in a packet-switched network, and, more specifically, to a video or audio conferencing service that is easy to use and that makes efficient use of bridge resources.
Teleconferencing has become a useful tool for allowing three or more physically separated parties to participate in the same telephony call. Such calls are completed by connecting each party to a teleconferencing bridge which has a number of ports for selectably interconnecting participants of a particular conference call. Depending upon the capabilities of the bridge and the network, conferences may be audio only or can be video and audio conferences. With the proliferation of packet-switched networks such as the Internet, audio and video conferencing has become more accessible to users in general. Specialized software and hardware and the introduction of standard protocols are making teleconferencing easier to implement across a network.
In order to provide a teleconferencing service in a cost-effective matter, a service provider must insure that adequate bridge resources are available while avoiding underutilization that results from deploying too many bridge resources. Typically, teleconferences have been scheduled in advance in order to allow the service provider to manage their bridge resources according to the times of conferences and number of parties to be included in a conference. Thus, the service provider can balance the resource load across its existing resources. Advance scheduling has also been required for purposes of arranging for payment details. Once a conference has been scheduled, unique telephone numbers for participants to call and/or unique conference identification numbers or passcodes have had to be distributed to the conference participants in advance. Consequently, teleconferencing systems have been somewhat inconvenient to use and have not supported user's desires to initiate conferences upon a moment's notice.